But she was lying, and he knew it.
Hurt twisted inside him, unexpected yet somehow familiar. A pain like grief. Because he’d thought he’d had it, he’d thought he’d gotten her trust. Yet clearly he hadn’t, so what could he do? He could use sex like he had before, force her to tell him everything using pleasure. Or he could withhold the information about Thalia.
Or you could trust her to tell you eventually. Because she’ll never trust you if you don’t trust her.
Well, he could wait for that moment if he had the time. But he didn’t. And it wasn’t likely she’d ever trust him anyway. He’d lost the right to win that from anyone a long time ago, just as he’d lost the ability to trust himself.
No, he only had the very little information about her sister that he could use. So he would.
Jericho smiled. “In that case you’re going to have to wait until all this is over, won’t you?” And he lifted her hand, brushing his lips over the backs of her fingers.
Temple shivered, watching him for a second.
Then she looked away.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Temple sat on the black velvet sofa in the office of Le Papillon Bleu, Jericho’s Parisian club. Ahead of her were the big glass walls that looked out over the whole place, allowing him a view of everything that went on there. The office was set up high, a cube that projected out from the walls and looked as if it was only accessible via a set of steel stairs that led from one of the gantries that crisscrossed above the dance floor of the club. In reality, the office had another entrance through a doorway that led into the rabbit warren of the club’s back rooms.
The office had a slightly vertiginous feeling since the floor was also transparent and made of thick glass and, allowing a view straight down into the dance floor itself.
She didn’t look down. Instead she looked at Jericho, standing there in front of the massive glass walls, talking with a group of men with Triad tattoos peeking out from underneath their custom-made suits. She had no idea what they were talking about since they were speaking in Chinese, though that didn’t seem to be a problem for Jericho. Whichever dialect they were speaking, he sounded as if he was fluent.
They’d gotten back to Paris early that morning after a tense flight where she’d avoided him by locking herself in her cabin and pretending to sleep. Half of her had expected him to bust down the door anyway, yet he hadn’t, and she didn’t know whether to be pleased about that or not.
As soon as they’d arrived back at his Parisian house, he’d left again with Dmitri, obviously going off to deal with the “issues” he’d mentioned back in New York.
Alone in the house but for the guards, she’d wandered around, trying to figure out what to do with herself. Wondering why he hadn’t touched her since Elijah had given her back to him by the fountain in Central Park. Wondering why he’d been so distant.
But of course she knew why. She’d thought she’d hidden the strange distress that had gripped her the moment she’d seen him again, tall and muscular and lethal, leaning against the fountain’s edge. He’d been in jeans and a dark casual shirt, wearing a leather bike jacket, a cap on his head hiding his gilt and tawny hair. Innocuous clothing for a man who was anything but innocuous.
As he’d pushed away from the fountain with that dangerous grace that characterized all his movements, his green-gold eyes immediately coming to hers, her heart had seized up in her chest, grief getting a stranglehold on her throat.
She’d agreed with Elijah not to mention that Zac and Eva were in on what was going to happen in case he decided to make a move against them. Just like she couldn’t tell him about Zac’s private conversation with her. She didn’t think he’d take action against them, but she wasn’t sure he wouldn’t either so staying silent seemed prudent.
Except then he’d picked up on her distress and wanted to know what was wrong. And so she’d had to lie to him. A lie that had hurt him. Why else had he been so distant?
She hadn’t thought that his distance would hurt her too. Hadn’t expected that what she’d agreed on with Zac would be so very painful.
Music from the club reverberated through the office walls like a giant heartbeat. The soundproofing in the office muffled it, but Temple could still feel the vibrations pumping up through her feet. On the dance floor beneath her, people danced, their bodies illuminated by flashing lights.
She didn’t look. The people down there were the rich and famous of Paris, drawn to the club’s exclusivity and the promise of decadence. They didn’t know what went on in the VIP rooms of this club. They thought it was just a high-end nightclub with a few naughty strippers. They didn’t know there were girls kept here, girls funneled through to brothels throughout Europe. Girls sold to men with too much money and hearts made of stone.
She’d only come here to find her sister, that’s all she’d cared about. That and killing the man responsible for Thalia’s disappearance. But that man was already dead, and Thalia was alive. She’d gotten out thanks to the man standing over by the wall and no doubt discussing more “shipments.”
All you’ve done was for nothing.
Jericho’s voice was low and deep and decadent, and one of the men he was talking to laughed in response to something he said. None of them looked in her direction. She may as well have been part of the furniture.
She had to do something. She had to. Seven years of training, of learning how to kill, of taking lives to practice her skills, to earn money to keep up the search. And her sister had gotten out that first year. So yeah, all those deaths and for nothing.
She had to make them mean something.
The lights in the office were very dim, barely there. They were hardly needed anyway given the lighting from the club outside spilling through the glass. Silver flashes chased over Jericho’s face, illuminating the perfect line of one high cheekbone, the angle of his straight nose, the curve of his exquisitely carved mouth. He was beautiful, so beautiful.
But no matter what his intentions, he was responsible for so much misery. He’d saved Thalia, it was true, yet he’d let so many others drown.
There had to be some justice somewhere and maybe she was the one to deliver it. For all the girls that had been lost. For herself.
And perhaps for him too.
Her heart squeezed hard again, her throat tight and sore. But that was getting to be her usual state these days, so she ignored it.
Another ten minutes or so passed, and eventually the conversation Jericho was having with the Triad members finished up, Dmitri coming to show them out of the office and lead them back into the club.
The door shut behind them, cutting off the deafening flood of music abruptly, leaving a deep, heavy silence.
Jericho stood in front of the massive glass walls, his hands in the pockets of his black suit pants, his attention on his club. He had his back to her, the powerful width of his shoulders outlined as the lights flashed again. Like a king on the battlements of his castle, surveying his kingdom.
Or Lucifer looking out over hell.
“What kind of man spends sixteen years making himself into the devil himself?” It wasn’t until the words came out that she realized she’d spoken them aloud.
The silence deepened, the throb of the bass beneath her feet. But she let the words sit there because she had to know all of a sudden. Whether she’d been wrong to give him what she had. Whether she’d been wrong to believe he’d do what he’d promised.
Finally, he swung round, glancing at her. His eyes were shadowed, his expression opaque.
She didn’t look away. “You faked your own death. You turned yourself into a monster. You destroyed the lives of hundreds of women … Why didn’t you go to the authorities sooner? Immediately? Why did it take all this time?”
Slowly, he turned around, leaning against the wall at his back. She couldn’t tell what was going on behind his eyes. “You want to know whether I’m as bad as I seem to be, don’t you?”
“Yes.” She
couldn’t answer any other way.
“You know the truth, Temple. You’ve always known.”
“Tell me.”
“Why?” The flashing lights behind him cast his features in shadow, gilding his hair like moonlight. “You don’t trust that I’m going to end it all, do you?”
“I…” She had her hands clasped in her lap, her palms damp. “I want to.” And she did, she really did. “But men like power and you’ve been doing this long enough…”
“To what? Develop a taste for it?”
“Well, have you?”
He stared at her, his expression unreadable. “I’m going to bring this down,” he said after a moment. “I’m going to end it. You can choose to believe it or not, that’s up to you, but I will. I couldn’t go to the authorities any earlier because if I did, some people would escape. Some of them would find ways to protect themselves and I didn’t want anyone—anyone—to get away. This fucking business is a hydra. You cut off one head, and two more grow in its place. Which means if you want to get rid of it, you have to stab it right through the heart.”
She swallowed again, her throat dry. “Sixteen years is a long time to work at something.”
“Yeah, it is. But someone had to do it.” His voice was still flat.
“And those girls you rescued? Thalia?”
“What about them?”
“Why did you do that? Surely that was a risk?”
He lifted a shoulder. “It was. But I was sick of not being able to do anything, not being able to lift a finger to help. I always kept having to keep my eye on the big picture and sometimes … it was nice to be able to do something about the small details.”
The “small details.”
“They weren’t details, Jericho,” she said softly. “They were women.”
A muscle leaped in his jaw, and for the first time since they’d gotten back to Paris, she caught a glimpse of the man she knew behind the crime lord. The man he insisted he wasn’t anymore. Theo. “I know they were women.” There was something in his voice that was different now, an edge. “You think I don’t fucking know that? Every fucking day they came into the club, and every fucking day I had to look at them, pretend I didn’t see the bruises, pretend I didn’t see the tears—” He broke off and turned sharply back to face the glass walls and the club beyond.
There had been pain in those words and anger. No, not just anger, but rage.
Oh, you know about rage, don’t you?
“And if you pretend long enough,” he went on, the words curiously toneless. “Eventually you don’t see them anymore.”
Grief caught at her. Because she knew how it could happen. Hadn’t she been doing that herself all this time? Pretending that the contracts she took were only about money for services rendered. Pretending that the men she killed were all evil assholes that the world was better off without. Pretending so she didn’t have to see the truth.
“For years I made myself listen to them.” His voice was quiet now, almost inaudible. “To their tears and their screams. Because I needed to hear them, to remember what I was doing and why I was doing it. But that was the same. If you listen to the same thing over and over again, eventually it becomes meaningless.”
There was a long silence, and she wanted to get up and leave the room, escape from the grief that pulled at her, from the pain that seemed to wind deeper and deeper into her heart with every word he spoke. But she sat without moving, her hands locked tight together, listening.
“I have to do it, Temple,” he said softly. “Because it’s the only way I’m ever going to escape.”
* * *
He didn’t know why he’d said all that, but even that night she’d been away, he’d missed having someone to talk to. And now she was here, he couldn’t seem to shut himself up.
Stupid. He should never have brought her to the club, but he hadn’t been able to bring himself to leave her behind. Having her presence near him soothed something inside him, at the same time as it made that same part ache.
Through the glass walls of his office, he watched the crowds writhing on the dance floor, their hands lifted, bodies moving in time with the beat of the music.
Christ, he hated this place. Hated the noise. Hated the people. And yet this office was the one private space where it felt like he could relax his guard for a moment. Where no one could see in, and he didn’t have bodyguards tailing him.
Not that he ever did anything in here except business. And then, when that business was over, he would watch the crowds mindlessly. It was as close to peace as he ever truly got.
Behind him, he could feel Temple’s presence like a fire at his back, warm and vital and bright. Yet she’d been quiet since they’d returned to Paris. No prizes for guessing why that was. Had to be whatever had happened at Hunt’s. Sure, he probably hadn’t helped by keeping his distance, but what the hell did she expect? They both knew she was lying when she said there was nothing wrong.
A subtle perfume wound around him, expensive and warm, a feminine sweetness with hints of musk. Temple.
He didn’t move, keeping his gaze on the dance floor while concentrating all his awareness behind him. He could feel desire begin to shift in his bloodstream, flowing hot in his veins and gathering tight in his gut.
He hadn’t touched her since New York, and his dick was really unhappy about that. But that was too bad. The last time he’d had her was too sharp and fresh in his memory, up against the window in the lounge in his townhouse, her golden eyes wide, looking up into his, showing him everything. And then the night following, how she didn’t hold back. There had been nothing but honesty between them that night, and he didn’t want to go back to the lies that lay between them now. Not when lies had been the entirety of his whole fucking life until now.
God, he was tired of it. So goddamn tired.
There was a silence behind him, but he knew she was close because he could feel the warmth radiating from her. It pulled at him like the promise of spring after a lifetime of winter, and he had to clench his hands into fists in the pockets of his suit pants to stop himself from reaching for her.
“Violet told me you had a fiancée,” she said quietly, which was pretty much the last thing he expected her to say. “That you were going to move in together. That you had a career all mapped out.”
Ah yes, the life he was supposed to have had. What a fucking joke that had been.
“Rose.” Her name sounded strange and out of place here. “The daughter of a friend of Dad’s.”
“That … must have been hard to leave her.” A pause. “What happened, Jericho? Why did you give that up? Why did you destroy your whole life for … this?”
He’d never told anyone, never wanted to tell anyone. Because it said a lot about the man he’d once been and none of it good.
His father’s son. His father’s heir. His father’s plaything.
Maybe he should. Maybe a little fucking honesty was what he needed right now.
He kept his gaze on the crowds dancing beneath him. “Will you tell me what happened at Hunt’s?”
A pause. “Why do you think anything happened at Hunt’s?”
Below him, a woman in the crowd lifted her hands in the air, turning around and around, her expression blissful. “Because something changed. I get the feeling you don’t trust me the way you did before,” he said, then he let out a short laugh at his own wishful thinking. “Not that you ever did.”
There was another pause behind him.
“I can’t tell you.” Her voice was close. As if all he needed to do was turn around and she’d be right there in front of him, inches away. “I just … can’t.”
He didn’t turn around. “Because you don’t trust me.”
“No.” There was no hesitation this time. “I don’t.”
It hurt, no denying it didn’t. “Good,” he said anyway. “You shouldn’t.”
“Jericho—”
“My father taught me what I was from an early age,” he
interrupted, because if he didn’t say this now, he never would. “I was ten when I was first brought to the Lucky Seven casino and brothel he used to own. He caught me following him because I wanted to know where he went on his ‘trips,’ so … he showed me. After that, he used to bring me in during the day, when no one was around, showing me around the place and telling me it was his kingdom, and that one day I’d inherit it. I loved it. It looked magical, like something out of a story, and the thought of being a prince was … exciting.” The woman on the dance floor swayed to the music, ecstatic. She was high in all probability, and briefly he was jealous of the escape he’d never allowed himself. “I was fourteen when he first brought me to the club at night and told me I could pick any woman I wanted to lose my virginity to. After that I used to go there regularly, because Dad insisted I learn the ropes, that I needed to know all the ins and outs of his business if I was going to be his heir. At first it was just the casino side, and I loved the money aspect of it, the games of chance. It was exciting.” His hands were clenched into fists, so with an effort, he unclenched him. “I was seventeen when he showed me how he ran the brothel side, and by then I was thoroughly his pawn. It was a business to me, and I was interested in how it worked. I didn’t care where he got his girls from. I didn’t care that some of them had bruises, that some of them came to work with red eyes. I didn’t see their fear. I only saw what Dad wanted me to see.”
The only sound was the slight exhalation of her breath and the sound of shock in it.
“At the same time as Dad was showing me all this stuff, he was also creating for me a facade of normality. Teaching me how to maintain it. He taught me from an early age that men like us were special, were out of the ordinary, and so we had to hide it because it scared people. I didn’t question it. I believed everything he told me. He was God in my world, and everything he said was gospel.”
“You were brainwashed.” The sound of her voice was almost a shock.
“Maybe you could call it that. Or maybe it was just that I didn’t want to see what was right in front of my face. Whatever, I had a head for business, and I was good at it, I enjoyed it, so I helped Dad grow his business. That empire of his? We built it together, him and I.”
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